


Star End Antique Shop

by stilljustdreaming



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, M/M, Romance, Slice of Life, Supernatural Elements, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 01:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28913103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stilljustdreaming/pseuds/stilljustdreaming
Summary: After graduating from university, Raven moves in to the small town of Star End to help out in his grandpa’s antique shop. Strange things however start happening to Raven and the longer he stays in Star End, the more secrets begin unraveling about the town and about his own family.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	1. Arrival

‘RINGGGGGGGGGGGGGG…’

The familiar ringing tone coming from somewhere in his immediate vicinity made him pat at his pockets to locate his wayward cell phone that seemed to be eluding him at that moment.

‘RIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG...’

“Where’s that damn….ohh…” he trails off as he finally recalls slipping his cell phone into his backpack before boarding the flight.

‘RIGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG...’

“Yeah, hold your horses,” he mutters as he unzips his backpack and finally latches onto the ringing phone. The thin smart phone vibrates in his palm and when he turns the screen to look at who’s calling, he sees that it’s his grandpa on the other end.

“Hi grandpa,” he says as he zips up his backpack and hooks it over a shoulder.

“Heya boyo, I trust you’ve landed safe and sound?” he hears the old man say.

“Yeah, I’ll be right out. I’ve just got to pick up my luggage.”

Raven glances to his right and spots the luggage pick-up area and walks towards it with his phone wedged between his ear and shoulder.

“Alright, see ya in a bit boyo,” grandpa says as he hangs up.

Raven frowns briefly at the use of that cheesy nickname but soon spots his luggage bag and picks it up.

A small prickling sensation tingles at the back of his neck when he turns towards an old briefcase propped up a few steps away. He shakes his head and turns away, ignoring the sensation and the little voice in his head that reminds him that he might be going nuts.

‘Spiderman has spider senses to detect danger but all I seem to ‘detect’ are random items,’ he muses. ‘Like that shovel in our backyard and that random glass bottle mum picked up to use as a make-shift vase,’ he laughs to himself.

Once again, he wonders if he should start looking for a psychiatrist.

Ignoring the prickling sensation, he walks out towards the airport gates and the sensation soon fades as he strides further away.

He hears grandpa before he even spots him.

“Boyo! Over here!” his grandpa calls out while waving enthusiastically at him from beside his old sedan. He’s wearing an old long-sleeved button-up shirt and a pair of black pants that Raven thinks is probably as ancient as the shirt. His hair is almost all grey now but his old pair of golden-framed glasses still frames his kind grey eyes.

‘He still looks like one of those nerdy librarians of the Victorian era.’

Raven smiles at the sight and goes up to the old man.

“Hey grandpa, thanks for coming to pick me up,” he says as grandpa reaches in for a quick hug.

Raven closes his eyes, his muscles relaxing as he feels the familiar scent he associates with ‘grandpa’ wash over him, old newspapers and bar-soap. The hug doesn’t last long but Raven already feels a sense of homecoming.

He admits it freely and to anyone in the family that asks that grandpa has always been his most favourite family member. His parents and siblings roll their eyes every time he mentions it. ‘We know,’ they tell him fondly.

“I’ve missed you grandpa,” he tells the old man as grandpa releases him to make grabby-hands at his luggage.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it last Christmas,” grandpa apologises as they both manoeuvre to get his bags into the clunky red sedan.

“It’s alright, I was busy with assignments anyway.”

Grandpa pats at his shoulder fondly and before they could both get into the car, Raven hears a fairly affronted squawking sound coming from inside the sedan.

“Hestia!” Raven calls out excitedly to the large bird-of-paradise sitting in the passenger seat.

He opens the passenger door and soon finds himself with a face full of feathers as the bird flies out and lands on one of his shoulders.

The bird croons at him happily, its red and orange feathers puffed out excitedly and its gorgeous tail fanning out majestically in welcome.

“Grandpa, are you sure it’s legal to bring Hestia to the airport?” he asks only to get a wing to the face.

Grandpa laughs heartily at the two of them.

“No one’s ever questioned me about my darling before,” grandpa simply answers with smile.

Hestia chirps an affirmative in response and goes on to start grooming at Raven’s hair.

“Guh! Grandpa, tell Hestia to stop,” Raven squawks but grandpa merely laughs again.

“Okay, c’mon you two, we gotta long drive to get to before we get home,” grandpa soon reminds them and urges them towards getting into the sedan.

Hestia takes one last look at the ‘groomed’ Raven before deciding he’s had enough and gliding off to land on the passenger seat. Grandpa reaches over to shut the door and pat the bird on its head.

Raven huffs under his breath and soon gets into the backseat with his backpack. He sends off a quick text to his parents to let them know that he’s landed safely and that he’s now with grandpa.

“Buckle in boyo,” grandpa instructs and then they’re off.

He updates grandpa on what’s been happening with his family back home and they chat about his siblings and parents on the long drive. Pretty soon though, Raven starts yawning and before he knows it, his eyes start closing. He makes out the familiar sound of Hestia crooning softly in the background before he’s out like a light.

________________

A hand shakes him awake just as he was about to eat a large juicy cheeseburger in his dreams.

“Look outside boyo, we’re almost at Star End,” grandpa says from the driver’s seat where he’s reaching out to shake Raven awake.

Hestia chirps in agreement.

Raven rubs at his eyes and sleepily stretches before looking out the window.

On either side of the road are large towering trees that stretch out into large swaths of forested land to his left and right. On the horizon he spots snow-covered mountain tops that look so picturesque, he’s tempted to take some pictures and post them on social media.

“Wow,” he spouts out, greedily taking in the sights.

“Beautiful isn’t it? You’ve been here once before but I guess you might have been too young to recall much of it,” grandpa muses as a familiar classical tune plays softly through the radio.

He pulls out his cell phone and decides to take some pictures anyway but when he tries to post them unto a social platform, he realises that there’s no internet data available.

He then recalls that grandpa had warned him that it would be difficult to access the internet in Star End and sighs, already feeling bereft of the pleasures of the internet.

The small town of Star End soon comes into sight and he spots a fairly ancient-looking sign that says, ‘Welcome to Star End’. Well, at least it’s what he thinks it says as the words on the sign have become so faded-out that he can barely make out the letters on it.

The first building that comes into view is a large grey-stoned structure that looks almost like something you might see in a historical drama.

‘Is that a castle?’ he asks incredulously.

“It’s been around for more than a hundred years,” grandpa tells him and goes on to explain that it also works as the official town community centre and the mayor’s office.

“The mayor works in a castle?” he asks, amazed.

“Well, a couple of hundred years ago, we didn’t have a mayor but a Lord Protector who was like the lord or king of this area,” grandpa tells him this bit of historical trivia.

“The title of Lord Protector used to be hereditary and would be passed on to an heir but nowadays, we vote every 5 years to elect a new mayor.”

“So, who’s the mayor now?” Raven asks curiously.

“Eh, you’ll meet him one day,” grandpa waves it off dismissively and goes on to point out the other buildings in town that were coming into view.

“That’s the bakery, next to it is the diner and next to that is the grocer’s.”

“The doctor’s is one row behind and next door is the apothecary.”

“The tailor’s the one opposite and beside it is the tool shop.”

“That’s the bank over there and…”

Grandpa points out all of the places in town but most of it goes over Raven’s head. He nods obediently though, to show that he’s listening.

He’ll get to know these places eventually.

After all, he was here to stay.

When they finally park the sedan in the driveway of a quaint double-storey house, Raven finally lets out a sigh of relief. ‘We’re finally here.’

“Welcome home,” grandpa turns around to look at him with a warm smile and Hestia thrills out happily from the passenger seat.

“Home sweet home,” he agrees and wonders if he had made the right decision. He would give it time though, to figure it out.

They unload the luggage from the car and soon grandpa nudges him to the front door.

“Well? Go on, open the door,” grandpa instructs him almost eagerly.

“Don’t I need a key?”

“It’s a small town, the crime rate is almost non-existent,” grandpa laughs and continues, “I never use locks.”

Raven’s city-dweller instincts squirm uncomfortably at that but he simply dismisses it and turns towards the front door. ‘It’s probably an antique,’ he observes.

The tingling at the back of his neck kicks in full-time and he studies the intricately carved door that depicts something that distinctly reminds him of the eastern tradition of the yin and yang.

‘Feels like the entrance to a Shaolin temple or an eastern dojo,’ he fantasizes.

“Where did you even get this door grandpa?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s been in our family for generations,” grandpa proudly tells him.

Raven merely nods at that.

He places a palm on the dark, and most assuredly ancient, wooden doors and pushes.

It swings open instantly to expose the interior within.

“Hah! I knew it!” grandpa says in triumph and Raven looks to him questioningly.

“Welcome home boyo, even the house acknowledges you,” grandpa rubs his hands together in glee.

“The house acknowledges me?” Raven questions, his brows furrowed.

Hestia takes this opportunity to fly in from where she had been perched on the outside fence and lands on the back of a comfy-looking couch.

“Come in, come in,” grandpa says as he beckons Raven into the house and points him to the upstairs room where he would be staying in.

Hestia follows them upstairs and decides to stay in the room with Raven while he went about unpacking his bags.

‘Grandpa’s acting weird,’ he worries a bit as he hangs his clothes in an ancient looking cupboard propped against the wall.

“Has grandpa been experimenting with moonshine again?” he turns to ask the bird-of-paradise who had been eyeing his luggage critically.

Hestia makes a chirping sound and Raven laughs at that.

“Okay, guess we need to watch out for that huh?” he grins.

By the time they had a quick dinner of mash and roasted chicken breast, Raven was ready to face plant into his new bed. The back of his neck had been tingling non-stop since he had stepped foot inside the house and it was starting to grate on his nerves.

He couldn’t even identify what was causing the tingling sensation anymore. Was it that random book lying on the front counter of the kitchen? Was it that painting of a waterfall hung above the fridge?

They all seemed to be making the back of his neck tingle.

“You’ve had a long day boyo. Go on up to bed, I’ll show you around the shop tomorrow,” grandpa winks at him and Raven gratefully agrees.

Hestia croons to him from her perch by the fire and he pats her head gently before going up to his room.

It was sparsely furnished, with a bed, a study table and a cupboard but he knew that it was just a matter of time before stuff would be piling up in the room and disappearing soon after. The odd object however, might stick to being permanently there; like the random painting of a guitar his mother had hung up in his room a couple of years ago and had stayed there ever since.

Never let it be said that anyone in his family was a minimalist.

Their house back home was always full of odd bits and bobs after all, sometimes appearing at random and disappearing equally as fast. He would wake up one morning to see a mini-refrigerator in the kitchen before seeing it gone the next day. Another day he might walk into his room to see a new potted plant on the bedside table and only to find it gone a week later.

His family tended to be strange like that.

He expects it will be the same with his grandpa as his mother had mentioned that it was a family trait when he had asked.

He’s heard of stranger families so he mostly ignores the oddities in his.

He changes into his pyjamas and falls face-down onto his bed. His eyes automatically close and he feels the fogginess of sleep start to come over him.

‘Welcome home, little Raven,’ he thinks he hears a whisper of a voice before falling into the welcoming arms of mistress sleep.


	2. Star End Antique Shop

The crooning is the thing that wakes him up.

The familiar melodious sound jolts memories of holiday seasons spent at his family home when grandpa comes over to visit with Hestia in tow. He’d wake up every morning during those days to the soft crooning of the bird-of-paradise softly singing to him from her perch by his bedframe.

He opens his eyes and spots the familiar red and orange-feathered bird above his head, perched gently on the bedframe and crooning a familiar lullaby.

“Hey Hestia,” he greets the bird with a sleepy smile and then promptly stretches his arms to get the blood flowing.

He sits up in bed and looks around the room, almost expecting it to be his bedroom back home.

But of course, it isn’t.

Sunlight is streaming in from the window to his left, bathing the room in a soft morning glow. With only a few pieces of furniture sitting in the room however, the room looks astoundingly empty in the morning light.

‘Maybe I should get a rug or something,’ he sleepily muses.

Hestia chirps at him happily before she promptly flies out the open room door, probably heading downstairs to the kitchen for her morning breakfast after seeing that he had woken up.

‘That’s familiar too,’ he thinks amusedly.

He glances towards the open doorway and notices a new addition to his bedroom. The back of his neck starts tingling but he mostly ignores it, his brain is still too sleep-muddled to care.

It’s an old redwood grandfather clock, he identifies, hanging regally above his bedroom door. The pendulum swings lazily from left to right and Raven glances at the hands on the face of his new piece of furniture.

It reads, 8.05.

‘Grandpa must have placed it there some time this morning.’

‘I must have slept like the dead to not have heard him coming in,’ is the other thought that pops into his head.

He laughs to himself.

“Boyo, you coming down for breakfast?” grandpa yells up from the kitchen downstairs just as soon as he thinks about maybe sleeping in some more.

“Yeah, be right there!” he yells back and says a fond goodbye to his bed for the day.

_________________

“Why can’t we go in through the backdoor? I mean we could just walk in from the house,” Raven questions as they make their way past the garden blooming with flowers to the front of the shop, or more specifically, the back of the house.

“Cause it’s your first day on the job!” grandpa gestures excitedly at him. “And that means you have to enter the shop through the front door to get its approval.”

“The shop needs to approve of me?” he laughs, sounding doubtful.

‘Will it throw me out the doors if it doesn’t?’ he ponders.

“Have you been drinking your home-made moonshine again?” he then questions the old man exasperatedly.

“What? Of course no…anyway, this has nothing to do with the moonshine,” grandpa denies quickly with a wave of his hand.

They soon reach the back of the house.

Raven studies the building in front of him. The building is a large two-storey house converted into a shop at one end and a residential home at the other end, splitting the building neatly into two different spaces, with only a wall in between to separate them.

He had been too tired yesterday to even bother with looking closely at the house. Today however, he observes the growing ivy that creeps along the sky blue painted walls of the house/antique shop and the red painted roof that looks relatively sturdy.

The paint looks quite new for an old-ish house such as this and he doesn’t spot any places that are in need of repair.

The shop’s front door though, looking like the twin to the yin and yang-like front house door, feels somewhat out of place with the overall theme of the building and its vibrant coloured walls.

‘It’s like adding a mystical legendary-like door onto a house designed by a child,’ he thinks.

“Well? Go on, open the door,” grandpa urges him.

Raven sighs, deciding to just ignore his grandpa’s odd quirks and the strange ideas he’s been getting.

‘Maybe dementia is setting in.’

Like the house’s front door, there isn’t a handle or a knob for him to pull or twist so he just pushes open the door and soon, it quietly slides open.

“Welcome to Star End Antique Shop boyo,” grandpa pats his shoulder happily and pushes him promptly into the interior of the shop.

Raven glances briefly around the shop and thinks fondly, ‘This shop definitely belongs to a Blackwood.’

He ignores the tingling behind his neck that’s almost a constant companion now and studies the place.

There were odd trinkets in every available corner of the shop, haphazardly placed about the room with no sense of any order or naming system that he could think of. He sees a toy drum lying on a countertop next to an old pair of leather shoes. On the shelves, he spots candles, soap bars, keychains, and random hats. On the floor, there are boxes and boxes filled with odd bits and bobs of tools, books and keys. There is even something that looks like a box filled with even more boxes.

‘It’s like playing a real-life game of spot the missing object,’ he muses.

Raven is amazed by the sheer randomness of the many items in the shop.

“Well, what do you think?” grandpa spreads out his arms and grins at him.

“Feels just like home,” he says and grandpa chuckles.

Grandpa then shows him to the front counter where the cash register and the phone are. The old man tells him that it would be his job pick up the calls and to handle the customers that come in up front.

“I’ll be upstairs doing some reparation work on some of the more delicate antiques. If you’re unsure about anything, just holler and I’ll be down in a jiffy,” grandpa tells him before leaving him alone to figure out how to charge customers for the items in the shop.

Raven looks at the price list stuck to one of the cabinets next to the counter and reads it.

White tag – 50 copper stars.

Yellow tag - 1 silver star.

Orange tag- 5 silver stars.

Red tag – 10 silver stars.

‘Stars?’

‘What do stars mean? I thought they used Euros in this country?’ Raven puzzles over before deciding to look at the cash register.

He pulls out the cash tray without even needing a key and looks at the odd silver and copper coins lying inside.

He picks one up; it’s a small copper coin that weighs much heavier than the coins he uses at home. One side of the coin reveals a large seven-sided star and the other reveals the insignia he’s seen everywhere since entering this country; a sword and shield in the middle of a seven-sided star.

Deciding to get to the bottom of this, he stands up from where he was sitting behind the front counter and makes his way to the stairs leading up to the second floor of the shop to look for grandpa.

The sound of someone ringing the bell outside the shop though stops him in his tracks and instead, he makes his way to the front door.

He pushes the door open and blinks at the bright sunlight outside for a bit before his eyes adjust and he spots the tall figure standing in front of the doorway.

His brain grinds to a halt and he thinks somewhere in his head there might be choirs of naked baby angels singing ‘Alleluia!’ in high soprano voices.

The man outside is blond, blue-eyed, tall and quite apparently fairly fit based on the muscles bulging out from his t-shirt. Raven glances at the muscled arms and almost starts drooling at the sight.

His face though, yes his face, Raven thinks that the man might have walked straight out of a production of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table where he might have been the lead actor.

‘He looks like a knight that just stepped out of a fairy-tale,’ Raven thinks as he continues staring at the specimen of male perfection.

He just hopes he’s not outwardly drooling.

It’s only after a few minutes when his brain starts to reboot that he realises that in the time he had been staring, the man’s own blue eyes had been staring right back at him, seemingly studying his face in return.

“Erm, hi?” he says to break the embarrassment that’s coloured his cheeks.

The man nods at him and responds, “You must be Raven.”

‘Guh, his voice,’ Raven gushes at the somewhat throaty voice that he hears.

“Dev said you would be working at the shop,” the man says but before he could even respond to that statement, Raven hears his grandpa noisily making his way towards them.

“I thought I heard the bell,” grandpa says as he steps up to them and pats at Raven’s shoulder affectionately.

“I see you’ve met my shop assistant,” grandpa gestures towards the knight-in-perfection.

“Leon Bastion,” the man promptly offers his hand for a handshake.

“Raven Blackwood,” Raven offers his in response and takes his hand.

‘Such a firm grip,’ Raven’s mind supplies him and he hurriedly banishes any other wicked thoughts from his mind, especially when his grandpa is standing so close by.

“Leon mostly helps me with the heavy-lifting in the shop,” grandpa tells him and soon leaves them alone to get better acquainted while he heads back upstairs.

There’s a quiet awkward silence in the room after grandpa leaves and Raven fidgets a bit. He’s a bit embarrassed to look at the other man and glances about the room looking at the items lying messily about instead.

He hopes that’s he pulling the ‘looking around casually’-look off really well.

After a moment he hears, “Why are you holding a bronze star?”

“What?” Raven looks up to see the man observing him.

When the question finally registers in his head, he looks down to the coin he had been holding.

“Oh er, I found this in the cash register,” he answers and blushes almost involuntarily again when he notices that the man’s blue eyes remained focused on him.

The man then moves towards the back of the front counter. He beckons Raven over and soon pulls out the cash tray from the cash register.

“Do you know how the stars are used?” Leon asks.

Raven shakes his head.

The other man takes out a copper coin and a silver coin out from the tray. He then pulls out what looks to be a coin pouch from his pocket and drops a gold coin on to the table next to the two coins.

“100 copper stars are worth 1 silver star and 100 silver stars are worth 1 gold star,” he informs Raven as he points towards the coins on the countertop.

“I thought you used Euros? How many Euros is a gold star?” he questions.

“That depends on the exchange rate but I would imagine it would be close to 10,000 Euros ,” Leon tells him.

Raven’s mouth drops open in surprise at that.

‘1 gold coin is 10,000 Euros?!!’

‘And he carries more than 10,000 Euros with him in his pocket??’ Raven glances at the non-descript coin pouch in Leon’s hand. He’s pretty sure he heard more coins jingling in there when the other man took out the gold coin.

“So you have 2 different currencies in this country? Why didn’t I see that when I was at the bank?” Raven asks, reeling back his composure.

“We only use the stars in some parts of the country. But in this town, stars is the main form of currency.”

Raven hums in understanding. “Thanks for telling me.”

“I have to get to school soon but I’ll be back in the afternoon. Do you need help with anything before I go?” Leon asks.

“You’re still in school?!!” the question bursts out and there goes his composure again.

Leon nods. “I’m a senior at Star End High School.”

Raven hears this and his heart promptly breaks into itty bitty pieces. He can’t believe that he had been perving on a kid!

“Er no, I think I can handle it for now,” he replies evenly although on the inside the little soprano angels are crying tears of sorrow.

Leon’s blue eyes study his face for a moment before he makes his way towards the door.

“My cell phone number is written down on the list next to the phone. Call me if you need any help.” And with that, he leaves the shop.

Raven promptly face plants his face to the counter top table after he leaves. He feels his dreams scattering into a thousand pieces and flying off with the wind.

‘I think I should stop thinking about my dating life from now on.’

He’d never had any luck with dating or men, especially not when those two things were put together. He recalls the last time he had asked a guy out for coffee and they’d assumed that he was merely being friendly.

He sighs and goes back to the front counter to study the list of things that’s been stuck there next to the phone.


	3. Antiques?

  


Raven studies the list of names and the phone numbers listed next to them.

‘Mayor’s Office, Grocer, Apothecary, Doctor, Library, Animal Shelter…’ he reads.

‘Must be the list of numbers for most of the businesses and buildings in town,’ he concludes.

Next to the general list though, there’s a list of names. And looking through that list, Raven recognizes some but has no idea who the rest are.

‘Leon’s number is here and so is mom’s, but who’s Moran Blackwood?’

He’s never even heard of a relative with that name.

Shaking his head, he decides to ignore that list for now. Perhaps he’ll meet some of these names in town or he could ask grandpa later.

For now though, he’s curious about the way grandpa charges for the items strewn about the shop.

Standing up from where he’s sitting behind the front counter, he makes his way to the shelves closest to his left.

He looks at a bunch of candles crammed together on one end of the shelf and picks one up. It’s an ordinary-looking candle you might see being sold at any old supermarket and he wonders what it’s doing in an antique shop.

‘It doesn’t look like it’s very old,’ Raven assesses, brows furrowed.

He soon spots a small white sticker stuck to the bottom of the candle.

‘A white sticker means 50 bronze stars,’ he recalls from the list of prices.

Doing the mental math in his head, he calculates the price of the candle in his hand and his mouth falls open.

’50 Euros for a candle??!’ he gasps. ‘I could get a candle like this at our local grocery store for less than a dollar!’

‘Unless it’s made by some famous artisan of sorts?’ he ponders and puts the candle back on the shelf.

He moves further down the shelf and spots a worn-out porcelain doll. Although it has all of its body parts and nothing looks broken, the Victorian-like dress it wears and its long red tresses appear washed out with age. Its marble blue eyes though, are as clear as the multi-colored marbles he sees in a mesh bag lying right next to it.

He picks up the doll and holds it carefully lest he drops it. It’s small, about the length of his palm, but rather heavy for its size.

He turns it this way and that, looking for a colored sticker, and finally spots an orange sticker stuck to the bottom of one of its legs.

‘Orange…that’s around five hundred Euros,” he mentally counts.

Unlike the candle though, the porcelain doll does look more like an antique so he readily accepts the pricing.

When he picks up the mesh bag filled with the multi-colored marbles though, he has to do a double take and he look again at the colored sticker stuck to the outside of the mesh bag.

‘Red??!’

‘A bag of marbles is worth a thousand Euros??!’ he mentally wails. ‘That’s total rip-off!’

Raven starts questioning if maybe his grandpa is some sort of a conman. Who charges a thousand Euros for a bag of marbles?

‘Did royalty own these marbles or something?’ he scratches his head. ‘It’s even more expensive than the antique porcelain doll.’

He decides to move on from the shelf to a box filled with umbrellas lying at the foot of the shelf.

He picks one up and studies it.

It’s a plain grey umbrella with a simple plastic handle at one end.

‘It doesn’t even look that old’, he judges.

In fact, it kind of reminds him of the umbrella he purchased just last week at the convenience store across his street. He looks at a small etching on the handle and reads, ‘Made in China.’

Raven huffs out softly in disgust. ‘I don’t even think that this is an antique.’

The orange sticker he sees stuck to the plastic handle of the umbrella makes Raven wonder if he should start calling the police and reporting his grandpa for fraud.

He sighs and picks up another umbrella.

This one though, could probably fly as an antique.

It’s old, he can tell. He thinks it looks more like a Regency woman’s parasol rather than an umbrella.

It’s made entirely from a faded white cloth and there’s lace sewn in intricate patterns all over it. Although there are no moth-bitten holes in the material, he thinks that it might be only a matter of time before tears start appearing on the surface of the parasol.

The sticker on the wooden handle is a yellow one, he notices.

‘Why is the grey umbrella worth more than this antique parasol?’ Raven is baffled.

‘Maybe grandpa really is getting old,’ he shakes his head.

He compares the two umbrellas in his hands for a while before carefully putting them both back into the box.

He soon moves about the room with purpose, comparing the prices of the objects displayed around the shop.

‘Why is this old typewriter worth less than this plastic toy water-gun?’

‘Why is this pair of wooden chopsticks more expensive than this large oil- painting?’

‘An egg? Why is grandpa selling a chicken egg? And it’s 500 Euros??!’

‘Why is this pink color pencil kept in a glass display?’

‘That’s a box of tissues. Did he mislabel it? It costs 50 Euros?!’

Raven is truly and incredibly confused at this point. He doesn’t even know if his grandpa is running an antique shop or a junk shop for the rich and naïve.

He rubs at his brows and leans back against the wall in weariness. Something rattles behind him and he slowly moves away, hoping he didn’t just lean against anything fragile.

He turns around to look at the source of the rattling and sees an antique iron lock swinging lazily from where it’s latched onto a wooden door.

‘Strange,’ he thinks. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever noticed this door in the shop.’

He should have though, it’s blatantly smack right there and there was only so much space in the shop.

‘I wonder where this door leads to?’ he questions, studying the somewhat plain looking door. There’s nothing fancy about it and it’s nothing like the doors at the entrances to the shop and the house.

The lock that’s latched onto it though looks like it could be used as a prop in a scene from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie where they had locked up Captain Jack Sparrow in a dirty cell with the rest of his criminal inmates.

‘Why is it so securely locked up? Grandpa doesn’t even lock the front doors to the shop and house,’ Raven puzzles over.

‘Maybe it’s where he keeps the more valuable antiques,’ he shrugs and ignores the mystery of the locked door. He could always ask grandpa later.

He goes back to looking over the items in the store and by the time he’s poked about at most of the nooks and crannies of the place, his stomach starts gurgling in demand for food.

He walks over to the staircase leading up to the second floor of the shop and tilts his head up.

“Grandpa! Should I get started on lunch?” he yells.

He hears a thump, like the sound of something heavy falling to the floor, followed by muffled cursing.

“I’ve made more than enough at breakfast. It’s all on the kitchen counter in the house,” he hears grandpa yelling back.

‘Well, at least his lungs are still going strong even if other things are not,’ Raven shakes his head and looks at the chicken egg sitting inconspicuously on a tasseled-pillow to his right.

He spots the door leading to the house and turns the knob. It turns smoothly and he pushes the door open to reveal the back portion of the house which his grandpa uses as a reading room.

Hestia greets him enthusiastically with a happy chirp when he spots her perched on a tall wooden perch by a shelf of books.

He reaches over to pat her head gently and then steps towards the kitchen where he’s a hunter on the prowl for food.

The sandwiches are lying on a large plate on the counter just as grandpa described it and he grabs one to hungrily chomp down on.

‘Mhmmm, salmon and mayo.’ He takes his time munching and enjoying the fare.

Grandpa walks in not long after.

“So, how has your first day been so far?” grandpa asks, joining him at the dining table.

Raven swallows his bite of sandwich and takes a large gulp of water to wash it down before he even thinks of answering that loaded question.

“Grandpa?” he starts.

“Yeah?”

“Are you a conman?” he decides to get right down to the meat of it.

Grandpa laughs loudly and heartily at the question. His laughter vibrates about the house, startling Hestia who was about to take a bird-nap in the reading room.

She decides to find out what all the racket is about by flying into the kitchen and alighting on the top one of the dining chairs. She cocks her head to stare curiously at the two of them.

Raven watches grandpa laughing his head off with a bemused frown.

“You’re selling a chicken egg at your antique shop for 500 Euros,” Raven accuses.

Grandpa laughs a bit more at that before wiping at the moisture that’s gathered at the edge of his eyes.

“Trust me,” he tells Raven, “it’s worth the price.” There’s a mischievous sparkle in his eyes when he says this.

“How can a chicken egg be worth 500 Euros?” Raven asks incredulously. “I know you said your shop was a little unorthodox, but I think that’s taking it a bit far.”

Grandpa chuckles and pats at Raven’s back in appeasement.

“You’ll see boyo, you’ll see. I promise I don’t cheat any of my customers,” he tells his grandson before changing the topic to the pasta he’ll be making for dinner.

Raven huffs at the blatant change in topic before deciding to let it go. He’ll simply have to bring it up another time.

He also volunteers to cook dinner starting from tomorrow. His grandpa makes delicious sandwiches and pastas, but those are the only two dishes he knows how to make.

Raven doesn’t want to end up eating sandwiches and pastas for every single meal for the duration of the time he’ll be in Star End.

__________________

By the time late afternoon rolls around, Raven is bored out of his mind.

It also doesn’t help that the tingling at the back of his neck has been a constant annoyance that he’s been trying, but mostly not succeeding, in ignoring.

‘Maybe I should create an inventory?’ he thinks and then looks at the dozens and dozens of random objects about the room, some of which he doesn’t even know the names of, before thinking twice about it.

Grandpa doesn’t even bother with an inventory and with the state the shop is in, he almost understands why.

He sighs to himself and drops his head to the front counter.

The silence in the shop ticks on and he starts to wonder if he made the right choice to come to Star End. He knows his parents had been more than encouraging but at times like these he misses the hustle and bustle of city life where there is always something to do.

He most especially misses having internet on his phone.

Raven sighs quietly.

His boredom however, is soon relieved when he hears the bell ringing at the front door.

He gets up and heads towards the entrance, excited now that there’s a visitor.

He pushes the front door open and sees Leon standing there, probably done with school for the day.

His heart goes pit-pat-pit-pat before the logical part of his brain takes over to smack some sense into his hindbrain. ‘He’s a minor, a kid! Stop crushing on him,’ he firmly reminds himself.

“Hey,” Raven greets him with an even smile.

Leon studies him for a moment before nodding in greeting.

“Er, not that I don’t want to keep greeting you like this but you could just come in without ringing the bell, you know,” Raven tells him awkwardly.

“It wouldn’t be polite,” the other replies with shrug.

Raven ponders on this for a moment before asking, “But don’t you work here?”

Leon smiles a bit at that and says nothing.

“Oookay, is that some sort of cultural thing I’m not aware of?”

“Something like that,” Leon confirms.

“Right,” Raven replies and moves aside to let the other into the shop.


	4. Oddities

“Who’s that at the door?” grandpa yells down from upstairs.

“It’s Leon,” he yells back in response before shutting the door. He then turns to look at grandpa’s shop assistant, and also maybe steals a glance at the tantalizing muscles while he’s at it.

It can’t be wrong to just look right?

The other is peering about the place in an almost scrutinizing-like manner. His blue eyes scan over the piled objects on the floor and then move on to the shelves around the shop.

“Did any customers come in today?” Leon asks, his gaze now moving on to Raven.

“Er, no?” Raven tries not to squeak out when he sees the blue eyes roving over him.

‘The man has some serious vibes for a high-schooler,’ he thinks nervously. It’s almost like being scanned by an x-ray.

“Did anyone call?” Leon questions next in deliberation, his eyes resting fully on Raven’s face.

‘Is this an interrogation?’ Raven wonders, a bit perplexed. The man looks so no-nonsense that he’s starting to feel a little worried.

‘I don’t think I’d screw up my first encounter with customers that terribly. Do I really look so unreliable?’ Raven thinks.

“No?” he answers in response while fighting the urge to fidget.

Leon nods at that and then walks over to a large box in the corner of the shop.

Raven had noticed it lying there in the morning but had mostly ignored it as the flaps of the box had been closed.

The other man bends down and easily lifts up the large box. Raven tries not to ogle at the muscles at play but really, can you blame him? Besides the man’s little oddities, he’s undoubtedly a specimen of masculine perfection.

Leon carries the cardboard box over to the front counter where he gently places it on the countertop.

“Dev left some new items in the box yesterday, I haven’t had the time to sort them out,” he tells Raven.

“Grandpa did?” Raven asks, moving over to peer into the box’s contents when Leon opens up the flaps.

He sees a few objects lying inside; a large green porcelain plate, a furry brown teddy bear, a set of painting brushes, a thick hard-covered tome and a pair of leather gloves.

Leon carefully removes the objects from the box and the items all end up side by side on the countertop.

Raven picks up the item closest to him, the teddy bear, and studies it.

Its brown fur is a little faded and the red bow tied on around its neck looks more pinkish than red at this point. All in all, it looks like a well-loved teddy that some kid probably owned for many years before giving it away.

He soon spots the yellow sticker stuck on one of its paws.

‘100 Euros huh?’ he ponders. He’s still not quite used to thinking about the stars currency quite just yet so he converts the prices to Euros to judge the value of the items in relation to the currency he recognizes.

“It suits you,” he hears Leon say and turns to see the other man staring at him with amusement in his eyes as he looks at Raven holding up the teddy bear.

Raven’s ears turn red at that and he swiftly puts down the soft toy.

He hears an amused huff from the other man at his quick action.

“So since grandpa’s already labeled them, where do we place the new items?” he clear his throat and throws out the question to escape further embarrassment.

“There are some empty spots over there,” Leon points to a large shelf, a tall hulking piece of furniture that takes up almost a whole wall of the shop.

“Is there some sort of systematic order to where we put the items?”

Leon shakes his head. “We squeeze them into any available space we can find.”

‘I knew it,’ Raven thinks.

“Then how do we find anything in this shop?” he questions.

“Dev knows where everything is, I usually just help with moving things in and out of the shop,” Leon informs him with a shrug.

‘Wow grandpa, talk about messy.’ Raven sighs a bit.

“How do we get new items? I mean, who delivers them?” he asks, trying to find out more about the operations of the shop.

“Our suppliers deliver the items to the local post office in town,” Leon explains. “When they call up the shop to tell us that a new shipment is here, I head down to the post office to collect the items and drive them over to the shop.”

“Ohh…so who are our suppliers?” Raven questions further.

Leon pauses at that. He studies Raven quietly for a moment before answering, “Dev will tell you more about that.”

Raven blinks. “You mean you don’t know?”

The other man shakes his head. “Dev will tell you more.”

That is a strange answer to his question if you ask Raven. Are their suppliers some sort of black-market dealers? What’s with the secrecy? Raven is not sure if he’s just getting a wee bit paranoid but this antique shop is starting to feel a tad bit fishy for his liking.

‘Maybe he’s just not sure?’ his brain supplies.

“What about our customers?” he asks.

Star End is a small town in the middle of nowhere. How many people would actually make the journey all the way to this small-town shop just to get a couple of antiques? The residents of Star End can’t be the only ones purchasing antiques right? 

‘Does grandpa even make a profit?’ he ponders.

Leon shakes his head again and answers, “We get a lot of buyers from out of town.”

“We do?” he questions, puzzled. “How do people even know about this shop anyway?”

“We have a website,” the man tells him evenly.

“We do??” he bursts out in question again.

Leon answers that by taking out his cellphone and showing him a page from the web.

Raven glances through it disbelievingly.

‘Star End Antique Shop- We sell and repair antiques,’ he reads. The address and telephone number of the shop are listed below.

He even sees a picture of a shelf filled with antiques.

Raven can’t help but glance at the familiar looking shelf to his left and Leon comments in confirmation, “I helped take that picture.”

‘Wait, it’s a website?!’ his mind quickly moves into another direction.

“You can get internet?” he asks eagerly, noticing the full bars on Leon’s cellphone. “Grandpa said it might be difficult to get a signal here,” Raven tells him.

The man nods. “You’ll have to go to the tool shop in town to subscribe to their data package. Other internet providers don’t work here in Star End.”

Raven almost sighs out loud in relief. Finally, he’ll have internet! Glorious internet! He decides that he’ll make the journey to town tomorrow in search of the tool shop. The internet gods are calling his name!

“So, we get lots customers who come from out of town because of this website? Is the antique industry really so lucrative?” Raven brings up the previous topic.

He’s still doubtful. The website doesn’t have anything else on it besides what’s on the front page. There isn’t even a listing of antiques for sale.

“Maybe the antiques are worth the price,” Leon offers neutrally with a shrug.

“Really?” he intones. He looks at the chicken egg sitting innocently on the pillow and back at Leon.

‘I still think there’s something fishy going on,’ Raven determines but decides he’ll get to the bottom of it some other time.

They spend the next hour moving items back and forth, looking for space on the crowded shelf by the window for the new additions.

By the time it hits 6 pm; they’ve more or less found places for the new items and organized a few of the older ones. Raven takes down all the old magazines sitting randomly about on the shelf and places them into an empty box. He decides that the box is going to be where they store old magazines from now on.

“I’ll be back around 8.30 tomorrow morning,” Leon informs him before making to leave the shop for the day.

Raven nods in understanding.

The next sentence the man says however leaves Raven a bit confused.

“Don’t go out alone at night and if you have to travel outside town make sure you don’t go alone, even in the day-time,” the man warns him out of the blue.

“Er..why?” Raven asks, thinking that the man might be a little paranoid. Grandpa did say that crime was almost non-existent in a small town like this.

Leon stares at him for bit and Raven admires the man’s sharp blue eyes. He’s not as nervous now that he’s gotten used to the other man, especially as they had both spent most of the late afternoon together sorting through a dusty shelf.

“The town is not always as safe as it appears to be,” Leon tells him stiffly.

Raven nods obediently in acquiescence, thinking that he wasn’t planning on a night walk to town anyway. And he certainly isn’t a fan of solo-hikes out into random forests in the middle of nowhere.

“Call me if you need any help,” the man reminds him once again before walking out the shop.

Raven follows him to the entrance and stops there, watching Leon make his way to a white pick-up truck and eventually drive off.

‘A white steed for a rather odd knight,’ Raven thinks amusedly to himself before closing the door and deciding that it’s time to help grandpa with dinner.

_____________

He swallows down a chunk of meatball before deciding to ask the question.

“Hey grandpa, how do you price the items in the shop? I mean, how do you know which item is more expensive?”

Grandpa looks up at him from across the dining table. He swallows a gulp of water from his glass before he answers.

“Through experience boyo!”

“One day you’ll be just as experienced as I am,” grandpa tells him cheerfully and goes back to munching on his meatball pasta.

Raven contemplates that answer and runs through all the answers grandpa has ever told him about the workings of the antique shop in his head.

‘He’s basically given me no answers at all,’ Raven determines.

“Leon told me to ask you about our suppliers. Who do we get the items in the shop from?” he tries a different angle.

“Huh? Oh, er… we have family who are antiques dealers. We get most of our items from them,” grandpa tells him.

“Why haven’t I met them? What are their names?”

“Why, there are Blackwoods, Mores and er..a couple more,” grandpa says and continues munching.

Raven waits but grandpa doesn’t say anything more to elaborate.

‘What is up with this shop? Why is everyone giving me so many vague answers?’

“Grandpa, are you sure you’re not hiding something from me?” he questions, staring straight at his grandfather.

Grandpa chokes a little bit at that before gulping more water down his throat.

“What? No, of course not, why would..? Er, could you pass the salt?” grandpa replies and Raven spots the blatant misdirection for what it is.

He sighs and decides that he’ll have time to figure out about what’s really going on with the shop.

But for now, he’ll leave things as it is. He doubts he’ll get anything substantial out of grandpa today anyway.

“You’ll know more about the shop one day, I’m sure of it,” grandpa leaves him with this very vague sentence before they turn in to bed for the night.

_______________

Raven lies on his back on his comfy bed and stares at the screen of his cell phone. He types out a message to mom and dad to tell them a little about his first day in Star End and ponders about maybe calling mom to ask her about the shop and about grandpa.

‘But would she tell me more?’ he wonders, recalling that even his parents had been a bit vague about grandpa’s shop.

‘Do they not know or are they also not telling me things?’

Raven frowns and decides to poke at it some other day.

He huffs out in frustration and drops his cell phone on to the bedside table that had now joined the rest of the furniture in his room. He thinks that tomorrow he might find a chair or a lamp in his room as new additions.

‘When did grandpa even sneak past me to put this bedside table into my room?’ he puzzles over, brows furrowed. He then decides to simply ignore it like how he’s ignoring all the other oddities about grandpa.

He rolls over and his arm suddenly smacks onto something hard.

‘What?’ he turns to look at the object his hand had collided with.

A leather-bound tome lies curiously on the left side of his bed, sitting on the warm comforters like it had been there all along when Raven was sure it hadn’t been there before this.

‘That’s weird,’ he thinks.

He picks it up and studies it.

‘Grimora’ is the title etched into the leather cover of the tome along with other unrecognizable symbols which he has no idea what to make of.

‘They could be a form of ancient Greek,’ he thinks as he tries to recall the classes he had gone through at university.

‘What is this even doing here?’

He tries to open the book to get a glimpse of what’s inside but finds that it simply won’t budge.

‘A book that won’t open? Is it stuck with glue somewhere?’ he tries looking in between the pages but doesn’t find any sign of it.

‘Forget it, I’ll ask grandpa about it tomorrow. Maybe he left it on the bed when he carried in the bedside table.’

He places the leather-bound book on the table next to his phone and decides to simply go to sleep.

He’s had enough of mysteries for one day and the constant tingling at the back of his neck is making him feel more exhausted than usual.

He shuts his eyes and soon, he’s sunk into a deep sleep.

He’ll wake up the next morning to find the leather-bound tome gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed reading the story. Do check out my WordPress site where I post my original slash fiction (https://dabdreaming.wordpress.com/). And do leave comments yeah?


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